The reinforced concrete shear walls are being widely used in the domestic high-rise residential complex buildings. If designed by current codes, the special boundary element is needed in almost all high-rise shear wall buildings. This is because the equation for determining the provision of the special boundary element in the current codes cannot reflect the characteristics of the domestic high-rise shear walls with high axial load ratio and high proportion of elastic displacement to total displacement. In this study, a new equation to be able to reflect the characteristics is proposed. By using the equation, the special boundary element may not be necessary in certain cases so that structural engineers can relieve the burden of installing the special boundary element in every high-rise shear wall.